The Temptations in the Wilderness

"Jesus, the Son of God ... in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet
without sinning" (Hebrews 4:14,15).

The meaning of that passage is quite plain. Unlike us, Jesus always conquered temptation. He never sinned, not once. But in every other respect his temptations were exactly like ours. And yet the detailed accounts of his great temptations in the wilderness seem to show that these were very unlike ours. At least, they would have been unlike anything that we have experienced if the devil that tempted Jesus really was a fallen angel. Read the first eleven verses of Matthew 4 and see this for yourself. The devil took Jesus to the top of the temple in Jerusalem, and tried to persuade him to throw himself down.
Then "the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them; and he said to him, 'All these will I give you, if you will fall down and worship me'."

This account is full of difficulties for those who believe in a supernatural devil. Would the Son of God have been willing to go climbing up temples and mountains in company with a fallen angel? Would he have been likely to throw himself down because a wicked monster said so?

And where is there a mountain from which one can see "all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them"? In any case, would a superhuman devil have been so stupid as to point to those kingdoms and say, "All these will I give you"? Jesus knew very well that the kingdoms of this world belong to God, and that no fallen angel could have the power to give them away. Three times in one chapter the Old Testament says that God rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomsoever He chooses (Daniel 4:17,25,32).

But as soon as we accept that the devil is our fallen human nature, all these problems vanish. As Canon Deane and Bishop Gore have admitted in their books, quoted in chapter 1, the story of the Lord's temptation is written in picture-language. It describes the fight that took place in Jesus Christ's own mind. It is a vivid account of the same sort of struggle that all human beings experience every day: a battle with the real Satan—ourselves! Only with Jesus the battle was far more intense.

He had just been given the power of the Holy Spirit, power without limit. He knew that he could now do anything. He could imagine himself manufacturing food from the stones, jumping off the top of the temple and landing unharmed, conquering the whole world if he wanted.

Should he use his power to do these things? "The devil"—that is, Christ's own human instincts—suggested that it would be wonderful to do so. But he knew that his God-given power was meant to be used for the good of others, not for his own pleasure. So he suppressed these typically human desires, saying, "Begone, Satan!"

Now we can understand yet another passage that has always baffled those Bible students who believe in the fallen-angel Satan. In Mark 3:27 Jesus claimed that he had already "bound" Satan. Yet he certainly had not "bound" any supernatural Satan at that time.

What Jesus had done was to "bind" the "Satan" of human nature that was inside him. He did this every day, by conquering every temptation that came to him and thus living a sinless life.

How Jesus Destroyed the Devil
At the time of his temptation the Lord Jesus Christ defeated the devil. Throughout his mortal life he kept the devil "bound". And when he died he actually destroyed the devil. This verse, which was written about 30 years after he died, tells us so:
"Since the children, as he calls them, are people of flesh and blood, Jesus himself became like them and shared their human nature. He did so that through his death he might destroy the Devil, who has the power over death" (Hebrews 2:14, Today's English Version).

This passage is full of problems for those who believe in the fallen-angel devil. Look at the last statement in the verse first. The devil has the power of death. But we have already seen that God says nobody besides Himself can take away life. (Deuteronomy 32:39). And Jesus, long before he died, said that nobody could take his disciples' lives away from him (John 10:28).

This assures us that no person, apart from God Himself, ever had the power of death. It would therefore be almost blasphemous to suggest that a wicked, rebellious angel could have the power of death. Yet Hebrews 2:14 insists that the devil had that power.

This proves conclusively that the devil of this verse cannot possibly be a supernatural devil, or, indeed, a person of any sort.

Sin and Death
But now let us try the key that has already explained so many difficult passages. There is no person, besides God, who holds the power of death. But there is one thing that holds it: human sinfulness. Here are two verses that say so:

"The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
"Sin when it is full-grown brings forth death" (James 1:15).

Without any doubt, therefore, the devil of Hebrews 2:14, the devil that had the power of death, was human sinfulness.

Now to return to the first sentence of the verse we were looking at, Hebrews 2:14. Notice how it says that, in order to destroy the devil, Jesus needed to "share our human nature". This statement presents another unanswerable question for those who believe in a supernatural devil. Why should Christ become human, if the thing he wanted to destroy was a mighty evil spirit? How could any human being hope to defeat such a monster?

Also, take note of this verse's teaching that Jesus died so as to destroy the devil. But what can a man destroy by dying, except his own human nature, or his own self? Now that we know the devil is human nature—actually is that evil thing we call "SELF", or selfishness—all is beautifully clear. Of course Jesus had to share our human nature. Otherwise, there would have been no "devil" inside him to be destroyed. Of course he had to die. Otherwise he would never have completely destroyed "self”.

The Power of Human Nature
With the right key in our hands everything in this verse fits together and makes perfect sense. Self, the human-nature devil, is too strong for you and me; it has the power of death over us; it destroys us. But the Lord Jesus Christ was the one and only human being who conquered every temptation that his human nature could hurl at him. And he went on doing so, right up to his dying breath.

The night before he died he admitted to his Father that his human nature dreaded dying on the cross. But he was determined to obey his Father, rather than his own human desires. He prayed:
"Not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).

Had he done his own will and run away from the cross, the devil of human nature would have destroyed him. But he did no such thing. Instead, he did his Father's will. He went forward bravely to an agonising death. And thus he destroyed the devil.

What We Have Learned
Before going any further it might be as well to take stock. Let us think back over the earlier chapters and see where they brought us.

Chapter 1 explained that there have long been two points of view about the devil. Many have believed that it is a fallen angel; others have believed that the devil is the Bible's way of referring to human wickedness.

In chapter 2 we looked at every mention of Satan in the Old Testament. (The name "devil" is not found in the Old Testament at all.) Clearly the Old Testament Satan looks much more like a human-nature devil than a supernatural devil.

Chapter 3 began by giving some historical evidence about the belief of the ancient Jews. They regarded Satan as what you might call a parable of human sinfulness. Then it showed how the other view of Satan began among the ancient Persians. After this it quoted many Old Testament passages which make it impossible to believe in a fallen angel; these Scriptures clearly show that God and His obedient angels are the only spirit beings in the whole universe.

In chapters 4 and 5 we looked at a number of the New Testament passages where the devil or Satan are mentioned. It was clear that every one of these is very difficult to understand for those who believe in a superhuman devil. But they all make perfect sense if you hold the Old Testament doctrine, that Satan is human wickedness.

There was not enough space to look at every mention of the devil in the New Testament. Now that you have the key to the subject you can examine the others for yourself. You will find that they all fit in well with the doctrine of a human-nature devil.

The only two that might cause any great difficulty are Luke 10:18 and Revelation 12:1-10. These are dealt with in the Appendix at the end of this booklet. (So are four other difficult passages which have a bearing on this subject, although they do not mention the devil or Satan by name.)

Another Problem
Now we must go on to look at one of the most difficult questions in all the Bible. This is the problem of those unhappy people we read about in the Gospels, who were said to be "possessed with an evil spirit", or, "possessed with a demon".